


You Can Lead a SEAL to Water (but you can't make him feel his feelings)

by greased_lightning_rod



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greased_lightning_rod/pseuds/greased_lightning_rod
Summary: “You ever,” he said, and then he paused, scratching at his jawline where a piece of shrapnel had cut him on—Tuesday? Wednesday? He had a hard time keeping track of all the explosions. “You ever want something, right, only you know it’s impossible, so you convince yourself you never wanted it in the first place, because that’ll hurt less than admitting you want it and never having it?”





	You Can Lead a SEAL to Water (but you can't make him feel his feelings)

**Author's Note:**

> I barely know what I'm doing here, but it turns out I ship this, so. Have a ficlet?
> 
> Premise:
> 
> You can lead a SEAL to water, but you can't make him feel his feelings. Unless you're Danny Williams.

Danny waited until Steve was camped out next to him in a beach chair, until they’d clinked bottles to commemorate the end of a hell week—probably not as bad as the real thing, but bad enough for Danny. He waited until the breeze kicked up and the sun went down. He waited until Steve let out a long, slow breath, just loud enough for Danny to hear.

In other words, he waited until Steve’s defenses were lowered. Hey, he was a cop, had been a cop for a long time. He knew how to use a tactical advantage.

“You ever,” he said, and then he paused, scratching at his jawline where a piece of shrapnel had cut him on—Tuesday? Wednesday? He had a hard time keeping track of all the explosions. “You ever want something, right, only you know it’s impossible, so you convince yourself you never wanted it in the first place, because that’ll hurt less than admitting you want it and never having it?”

Beside him, Steve froze; Danny didn’t have to look, he could tell from the sound, the lack of it, the air currents or something. Maybe Steve’s spidey senses were contagious.

He recovered a split second later, though, raising the beer bottle to his lips. “Is this about Rachel?” he said, his tone guardedly neutral.

Jesus God, the man was dense. Danny sputtered, because that—that actually surprised him, that level of stupidity. He’d thought Steve was done surprising him by now, but obviously he should know better. “No, it’s not about—really, that’s where your brain went first? Let me put this in terms you understand, okay, that ship has not only sailed, it went down all hands. Twice.”

Steve turned to look at him with an arch expression. Danny shouldn’t have given him the opening. “When you say ‘went down’—“

Danny rolled his eyes. He knew an avoidance tactic when he heard one; they made up about three-quarters of Steve’s emotional vocabulary. “Stop, you’re embarrassing yourself. No, it’s nothing to do with Rachel. And you call yourself a cop. What, you can’t figure out where this is really going? Have you learned nothing over the past”—he waved his hand vaguely—“however many years it is now?”

Now that expression narrowed, sharpened. Danny refrained from smirking. That would give him away; Steve would know Danny had played him. “Excuse me? You’re insulting my investigative skills now?”

“I’m just saying,” Danny said, gesturing with his beer, “you want to know where the story goes, you follow the line of questioning, babe.”

That got a nasal huff and another few seconds of silence. Steve was thinking about it, though, about whether he wanted to do this and also about the answer to the question. That was the thing about Steve; he resisted real intimacy whenever he could, but once he’d decided to play ball he didn’t hold back. Not his style.

Finally he said, “Yeah, Danny, I’m familiar with the practice.”

He could’ve meant following the line of questioning, but not with that weight to his tone. No, he was admitting that he’d pretended not to want things. Point to Danny. Hooray. His move.

Maybe one day getting Steve to talk about his feelings wouldn’t require a game of mental chess. But today—

Danny nodded, took another sip of his beer. Forced himself to look out at the water and give Steve the illusion of privacy, because the man had a face, a _lot_ of faces, and Danny was fluent in them and Steve knew it. “How’d that work out for you?”

Steve dropped his bottle in the sand—empty. “I barely talked to my dad for fifteen years before he died.”

Danny winced and finished his own drink, resisted the temptation to slide his thumb under the label. Not the time to give Steve that kind of ammunition either. “Good, so we can agree that the outcome was… suboptimal.”

This time Steve turned his whole body to look at him; he was a little defensive around the eyes but not pissed. At least not yet. “Is this going somewhere, Danny?”

 _Finally_. Danny turned too, keeping his body language open. Fuck the glorious sunset and the ocean; they didn’t need his attention right now. “If you’re finally going to admit you want it to, yeah.”

Steve opened his mouth a fraction of an inch, and either the sun was burnishing his cheeks that shade of tropical rose or he was actually blushing. Then that sheepish, genuine pleased smile, the one Steve always hid by ducking his head because God forbid anyone learn he had _emotions_ ; and Steve was fucking beautiful and Danny was absolutely, mind-bogglingly _stupid_ for him. He might as well offer his heart on a platter; it belonged to Steve anyway.

Steve rubbed the back of his neck, but he couldn’t scrub away the smile that lingered in his eyes and the apples of his cheeks. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Oh, he says.” Danny shook his head at the heavens as if to say _do you believe this guy_ , but honestly that was longer than he wanted to look away, because Steve was still wearing that expression and Danny wanted more of it. He crooked a finger. “C’mere.”

He didn’t know what he’d expected, exactly, but it wasn’t this—wasn’t Steve kneeling out of his chair, shuffling the two steps closer with his stupid cargo pants dragging in the damp sand. Maybe Danny wasn’t as good a detective as he thought, or maybe Steve had played this closer to the chest than Danny gave him credit for. Didn’t matter; Danny could work with it. He raised a hand to Steve’s cheek, brushed a thumb over the bone, gentle.

Steve leaned into it like the touch was the _only_ thing he’d ever wanted, closed his eyes and mumbled, “’M not gonna _break_.”

“Not on my watch, babe,” Danny agreed, and when he pulled Steve down he went easy, into a kiss as warm as the setting sun.


End file.
